


No Cost Too Great

by Clara_In_Stress



Series: Sorrowful Regrets [1]
Category: Hollow Knight (Video Game)
Genre: -hits PK in the forehead- This boyo can fit so many regrets in him, Angst, Heavy Angst, Not a great dad but he tried his fucking best for his Kingdom, So here have him as I see him with maybe a bit of OOCness, The Pale King is valid and I'll defend him to my last breath
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-16 22:08:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,307
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20610119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clara_In_Stress/pseuds/Clara_In_Stress
Summary: The Pale King would be nothing more than a Legend of Old, and eventually only the lips of the elders would still remember the taste of his name.





	No Cost Too Great

**Author's Note:**

> I don't care if it's ooc or not canon compilant. I wanna people to understand that PK is a bastard for a goddamn reason.

No cost too great.

The King of Hallownest had repeated those words like a mantra.

No cost too great.

No cost too great.

No cost too great.

He couldn’t stop, he didn’t want to stop, he was afraid of stopping. Because it would mean thinking something else. And there was nothing else in his mind other than his plans against the Radiance and his crushing guilty. Either would bring him madness, he knew—he  _ saw _ —but he’d long before chosen to go mad while protecting his people.

No cost too great.

His children were more precious than the Kingdom, his heart told him—it screamed and it howled and it hurt and it bleed and it suffered and he wished, more than anything, that he could prevent anyone else from feeling such a thing ever again—, but if he didn’t do anything, there wouldn’t be a Kingdom for the next generation. He was a strong being, a Higher Being of the Brightest Light, but even he couldn’t go against the Radiance’s Infection. Compared to her, his Light was a fluorescent lantern, and she was the Sun. So of course he had to think of something else. And of course the price to pay had to be excruciatingly high.

No cost too great.

The Pale King started to work. Hours, then days, then weeks, then… Well, he didn’t knew. It all blurred together in an agonizing eternity. Day and night mattered not, the Void on his hands would never completely wash away. His blessing of a wife helped and supported him through the experiments, and in return he never once showed her the failed vessels. He was already putting her through much grief, no need to prague her mind with the image of her children being thrown back in the Void. His children’s lives and his wife’s feelings in exchange of a future was not fair, but letting the Kingdom be swallowed back into mindless Light also wasn’t fair. It was not fair.

It was not fair.

The Kingdom had been created so bugs could live by their own will. So they could experience the world around them with their own senses, not someone else’s principles. He wouldn’t lie and say he didn’t seek for glory when he gave his people free will, he was a prideful man filled with ambition. He wanted and liked to be adored. He was still just a man, filled with needs and wants and sins and experiences. However, free will meant the people could turn their backs to him, and he did it all knowing of the risk. It had happened before; a being as old as the Wyrm had seen and tasted many things. If the people wanted to be his people, then it was their choice, and he’d rejoice in it like he deserved. Which he did. Unhappy with being abandoned, Radiance created a vile sickness and forcefully tried to take away the mind of others, a crime he could understand—who’d want to be forgotten? He had not wanted it either.

It was not fair, though.

It was not fair.

And for her to use the realm of dreams, one of the only realms connected with the minds of every living creature, it was just cruel. And made it much harder to stop the corruption. The realm of dreams was not a place easy to enter, or to control, unless one already was linked to it. Even Grimm, the Nightmare King, had trouble entering and manipulating the realm, even though the Nightmare Realm was much closer—in both placement and overall existence—than the Material Realm. Not that Wyrm had ways of calling the bat for help; unless the time of the ritual was close, the Troupe would stay far away from the Kingdom, and even then they might not appear, as the ritual asked for a Kingdom in ruins, and Hallownest was far away from that.

If you don’t have a dog, hunt with a cat.

If you don’t have a bat, use the Void.

Desperate, the Pale King turned to the only thing capable of fighting Radiance’s Light: the Void. The purest darkness, the oldest element, the truest state of the World. The start and end, interrupted but never bested by the intrusive Light. The Void was perfect in all but one thing. It was untamable. Wild and strong, It bowed to none, It bended to nothing, and It sure didn’t obey the King, as he was not  _ Its  _ King. It’d be foolish to make the Void fight Radiance, It was patient, It was the beginning and the ending. It’d be there still when the Great Moth finally perished, when Hallownest finally fell, when the Light finally extinguished. It could wait.

His Kingdom couldn’t.

Bits and pieces of the Void were used to create the Vessels, and the Void didn’t seem to mind, curiously watching the small pale bug run himself to exhaustion trying to make living beings that lacked will. The Wyrm could feel Its amusement as his whispered pleas for it to take care of his children fell together with the shells of the discarded Vessels. No matter, It answered, gently embracing the Shades and their shells until they were safely surrounded by It. Shell after shell fell into the Void’s embrace, and each carried the same promise.

One day, when he finally ended the Infection, he’d come back for them.

One day, when he could offer a safer future to them, he’d bring them out.

One day, when he would finally let his sins eat him away, his rotting body would be the only thing left in the Void’s embrace, and his existence would be swallowed by the Primordial, and he’d be part of Its eternity.

No cost too great.

He never got to return to his children.

The Pure Vessel was not pure and it was the King’s own fault.

It was the Father’s own weakness.

The Child had the most adorable laugh. They made no sound, but their shoulders shook and their head lolled back. The Father wished he could see more of it. Everyday. For the rest of life.

But the King had a duty to complete. And so the Hollow Knight was used to seal the Infection until the Pale King found a way to end it all for good. Seals were made to be broken, after all. There was so much to do, so much to prepare.

No cost too great.

No cost too great.

No cost too great.

The ritual made to seal the Infection and then the Knight took a lot of the King. Much more than he could pay. With the last of his strength, his castle was hidden away, protected from whoever wished to use his findings for evil. His loyal servants stayed with him, no matter how much he begged them to leave. And still, he died alone, sitting in his throne. Praying to the Void to hear his last pleas.

The Pale King only let his weary soul rest when one of the Vessels—he remembered that one, their curiosity and determination were admirable—came in, nail in hands, and took away the Kingsoul Charm.

The Void was untamable, but It seemed taken enough with the Pale King, the Ancient Wyrm of Brightest Light, to heed his last wishes.

The irony.

No matter, he finally could face the punishment waiting for him in the Afterlife, now that his children would be saved. The Kingdom would flourish again under the care of Princess Hornet and the bugs would forever remember fondly the Vessels—the  _ Knights _ —who did everything to save them. The Pale King would be nothing more than a Legend of Old, and eventually only the lips of the elders would still remember the taste of his name.

Good.

No cost too great.


End file.
